Fall
by Zea T
Summary: The fall of Praxus is deeply traumatic, and not just for the tactician visiting his home city at the time. Written for the PxJ community's anniversary challenge.
1. Chapter 1

Title: **Fall****  
**Author: zea_taylor  
'Verse: G1  
Rating: T/PG-13  
Warnings: Major destruction, Civilian deaths, Angst, Cybertronian profanity.

Summary:  
_The fall of Praxus is deeply traumatic, and not just for the tactician visiting his home city at the time._

Author's Note:  
_Written and originally posted for the livejournal prowlxjazz community's Anniversary Bingo Challenge – celebrating the community's seventh birthday. Each chapter is inspired by one or more prompts, posted by _wicked3659_. Commen__ts and suggestions for improvement are always very welcome!_

* * *

**Part One**

_**Prompts: Crystal Gardens, If you want to live – run**_

The crystal vibrated under Prowl's expert touch. He ran his servos along the long, angular shaft in a gentle caress. Angling his door-wings a fraction, he gauged the result. He could already feel the response spreading through the outcrop, the resonance building as he'd planned. It had taken perhaps six breems to get to this point and ease the living crystal out of dormancy. Now his work paid off, the hum rising through his pedes and then reaching the point where his audials too could revel in its soft music. It wasn't a simple melody. A pulsing beat rose and fell as the different shafts in the outcrop each responded at their own resonant frequency. Prowl's hands never stopped moving, stilling a resonance here, strengthening one there, playing the entire outcrop as if it were a musical instrument rather than a living, growing part of Primus's creation.

A scuffle by his pedes almost broke his concentration. He glanced down, and his instinctive frown softened. The mechling couldn't be much more than a new-spark. His grey plating still looked soft, his delicate door-wings rising and falling with every emotion that flickered across the small faceplates.

Right now, the dominant expression there was awe. The mechling leaned forward, letting his servos hover over the humming surface and then resting his shiny red chevron against the shaft of a crystal at Prowl's ankle height.

Prowl adjusted, tapping gently to excite that crystal more strongly, damping another to avoid a discordant resonance. The little one's optics were irised wide and burning bright, his processor swept up in the wonder of the moment. Bending down, Prowl caught one of the tiny servos in his own, stroking it across the surface and letting the infant revel in the music of his own creation.

The mechling's genitors had caught up by the time Prowl soothed the growth back to rest. They caught up their excited offspring, watching appreciatively as Prowl demonstrated a skill he rarely had cause to display.

The hum dropped to the limit of audial reception, and then lower, until only the door-wings of those present could detect the ripples in the air. The infant's wings twitched and flexed, a frown on his faceplates as he strained to recapture the sensation. One of his genitors soothed him, stroking his helm even as Prowl lifted his servos from the final crystal, bidding it silent thanks and a fine rest after its work.

He nodded a greeting and farewell combined to the two adults. They nodded in return, murmuring thanks but feeling no need to break the sense of tranquillity with unnecessary chatter. The right to use the Crystal Gardens, whether for music or for quiet reflection, was one of the oldest in Praxus. Most Praxians learnt to coax the crystal outcrops into rhythmic music before they could even transform. Few were formally taught, learning instead through instinct and the basic guidance of their genitors.

Prowl was one of the few whose genitors could secure private tuition. It was small hardship for him to share the results with an eager mechling and his appreciative guardians.

He felt calmer after the decabreem of intense concentration. His wings flexed behind his back, their movement an involuntary reaction to his emotion. He caught himself and startled at his own openness, a frown flickering across his faceplates before they settled to a rueful smile.

He wasn't on base now. The Autobot Army wasn't going to expire of shock if he expressed a little pleasure. And Prowl would rather sign a dozen requisitions than admit it, but Jazz was right: he'd needed this break.

Ahead of Prowl, the towers of Praxus rose from the city platform, glittering in the perpetual Cybertronian night. Somewhere behind him and to his left, he could hear the mechling's soft voice babbling and the low throb as an unskilled fist made contact with the nearest crystal growth. Everyone had to start somewhere.

Maybe Prowl himself had to start relaxing under duress, but it was certainly doing him good. Three orns into his enforced vacation, he was finally managing to set the war aside, if only for a few breems at a time.

His door-wings flared and froze, the thought bringing with it the tension he'd been trying to shrug off. He forced the sensory panels down with an effort. Sorrow showed in his slight frown as he wandered deeper into the Gardens, seeking solitude.

It wasn't hard. Once the Gardens, on the edge of the city platform and away from the watchful optics of genitors, would have been thronged with carefree youths. Today, the mechling and his two guardians were the only others Prowl had seen. The war sweeping their planet was touching even neutral Praxus. Mechs were working longer and harder, trying to balance out the shortages not even a neutral city state could escape. Younglings were staying home, or banding together in energon bars to debate the two causes. Already Prowl had become embroiled in two impassioned arguments since his homecoming. This evening he'd come to the Gardens instead, hoping to set aside his Autobot colours and the approval or approbation of his compatriots.

He was a Praxian who had chosen to renounce neutrality. More than that, he was the most senior amongst the hundreds of his country-mechs who had sworn themselves to Optimus Prime's cause. He was one of Prime's lieutenants, using his Praxian enforcer-trained processor to direct a violent conflict. No matter how just the fight, that was never going to be an easy concept for some to accept. His mere existence was an affront to the many who clung to Praxian aloofness, as if ignoring Decepticon atrocities would somehow make the crimes less real.

The tension was returning. Prowl shook his helm, easing his door-wings back to rest against a sturdy shard as he settled onto a new outcrop. He could almost hear Jazz scolding him. His fellow officer – his friend – had worked long and hard to manoeuvre Prowl into this sabbatical. He shouldn't be wasting the other mech's efforts like this.

"_Prowl!_"

For a moment, just a moment, Prowl imagined his thought had summoned the mech's voice. But Jazz wouldn't call just to check on his friend – not after persuading Optimus to ban Prowl from _any _Autobot contact for the duration. Even if he chose to break that order, Jazz had never sounded like this. The Ops mech's comm-voice rang with strain, his usual suave demeanour abandoned like the mask Prowl knew it to be.

"_Jazz?"_

_"Prowl, you've got to get out of there. Don't hesitate. Just go."_

_"Jazz, explain: Go where? Why?"_

_"Away. Out of the city. There's a major Decepticon assault. Primus…"_

The other's comm-voice trailed off. Prowl was already on his pedes, striding towards the park's main entrance.

_"You need my tactical input? You'll send a shuttle for me?"_

_"We thought they were heading for the Tagan Heights. The industrial complex. We were wrong. We won't get back there, not in time!"_

_"Jazz, you're not making sense."_

A throbbing note almost distracted Prowl from the bewildering conversation. He reached out without thinking to run a servo along the nearest crystal and calm it as he passed. It was only as he did so that he realised his door-wings were picking up the same vibrations troubling the outcrop… and then his audials heard it too.

Something big was moving nearby. Something big… or many somethings, each brimming with power. A flash caught his optic, a burst of light and flame from one of the city's tallest towers, expanding in eerie silence as the sound lagged behind in Cybertron's thin atmosphere.

_"Praxus."_ Jazz whispered the word. _"Primus, there's an armada moving on Praxus."_

_"But…" _Prowl stared. This didn't make sense. Praxus was neutral. More than that, it was defenceless. Even personal firearms were forbidden within the city limits. Prowl himself, armoured plating notwithstanding, was reduced to bare servos in a fight. Jazz didn't need to be told that. Jazz probably knew how Praxus stood better than its own ruling council.

A second tower burst into a rosette of flame, and a third, and now the sound caught up, its crashing roar almost louder than Prowl could bear.

_"I need to get to the Council. I can help coordinate…"_

Coordinate what? Praxus had no city weapons, no defence force, not even bunkers to shelter its people from the waves of Seeker-bombers overhead.

_"Prime's online with them. You just need to get out." _The other mech paused, the sound of raised voices just audible behind him. _"Frag! Prowl, you've got to get moving!" _Jazz's voice lost its shocked edge, became harder and more desperate. _"They're taking out the bridges. Run, slag it! If you want to live – run!"_

Prowl could count on the servos of one hand the number of times Jazz had given him a direct order. His comms cut off. His pedes obeyed the barked command before his processor caught up.

They turned, taking him away from the gate back into the city, away from the screams and the shattering of titan-sized crystal shards. He ran back into the Gardens, towards the edge of the city platform, his plan no more than half-formed.

He was perhaps half-way through the outcrops when he heard a cry and spun around, battle-poised, to face the cowering couple sheltering their infant between them. The two were similar to Prowl in frame, but they'd be slower. Their engines wouldn't have Prowl's fine-tuning, nor his vorns of pursuit experience. Just getting them moving might take too long in itself. The horror on their faceplates mirrored his own, but without the context and understanding. Their bewilderment and terror had frozen them in place, crippling them.

Prowl had klicks at best. The howl of Seeker-flight was everywhere now. A projectile fell, somewhere deep in the Gardens, and crystal splintered into clouds of jagged snow. Pain rained down in a thousand stinging shards against Prowl's plating. The sound hurt more, a hundred natural outcrops ringing with the screams of their shattered peers.

He took a step forward before he could second-think the impulse and snatched the keening infant from its genitors' arms. Transforming around the mechling, he tore away, only half aware of the two adults on his tail. They would travel faster without the burden. Prowl had the speed. He could sacrifice a fraction of it to get this family to safety. If three lives were all he could salvage from this massacre, it was better than nothing.

The wall ahead of Prowl marked the boundary of the city platform. Beyond lay the wastes that separated city-states. Leagues of structures and ruins, scaffolding and pipework filled the no-man's-land, all layered on top of one another in a mismatched jigsaw. No one knew how deep the fretwork construct went. Only the foolish and the desperate ventured amongst the crevasses and voids that underlay the great cities.

Prowl transformed, the mechling held against his chestplates with one firm servo, and swung himself over the wall, hoping and preying that his bearings were right.

Jazz had said the bridges were being bombed. He was right. As Prowl looked to his left, he saw the main Iacon road crumble, debris and a hundred thrashing mechs falling together into the bottomless deeps.

His optics tracked the unfolding horror and he tore them away with an effort, focussing instead on the narrow pipe under his pedes. It wasn't a bridge, as such. Every city needed an infrastructure to bring in power, energon and raw resources. Some of that vast network of ducting rose from below, supporting the platform and linking it to Primus below. Other structures radiated, most beneath the main bridges, or, in a few rare cases like this one, as single pipes, barely a mech's arm-span in width, traversing the void.

Beyond enforcers, ever alert for smuggling, and the smugglers themselves, probably no more than a handful of mechs knew these conduits existed.

There was a thump behind him, a vibration under his pedes. Prowl half turned to see the two pale-plated genitors drop over the wall. Taking the infant had motivated them, but they were still shaky, moving with the rigid awkwardness of shell-shock. They stared at the narrow pipework and the void to either side with profound dread.

Prowl knew instinctively that they hadn't seen the Iacon road blasted into the depths. They'd never have come this far if they had.

The mechling was still keening. The infant squirmed, reaching for his genitors and Prowl tightened his grip. He transformed with care, stretching a belt across his small passenger and making sure his hover-impellers straddled the curved surface beneath. The two civilians stared at him, aghast as he edged out onto the precarious bridge with their offspring. Both shook their heads, huddling closer together.

"I can't," one of them called, and he might have been whispering or screaming. Prowl couldn't tell above the ringing terror, the shatter of crystal and the ever-closer thunder of carpet bombs shaking the platform to its struts.

"You can." He kept his own voice level, calm. "For the infant."

That stopped the protests. The two held one another close for a moment and then eased apart. The taller of the pair stepped out and transformed, following Prowl. "For Bluestreak," he agreed.

"Blue," the second echoed, half in confirmation, half in prayer.

The bombardment that shattered the Crystal Gardens into dust behind them came just as both genitors committed to the crossing.

The Seeker strafing run that peppered the pipework, and the mechs crossing it, with laser fire seemed to follow moments later. Prowl tuned out the pain with a sharp command to his internal repair system. Fire spilled from the torn metal pipe under his impellers, the surface energon leak flash-burning and the larger reserves below starting to smoulder.

Prowl accelerated, his focus on the crossing absolute.

He felt rather than saw the moment that the second of the two un-armoured mechs following him was knocked aside and fell into the depths. He heard the other genitor's cry, and felt his own spark clench in helpless grief.

His impellors howled, struggling for purchase as the conduit bucked and twisted under them.

He was at close to top speed, the crossing reckless even by Jazz's standards, when the pipework gave a hard shudder and tore loose from the city platform.

He was alone on the pipe, its one fixed end cantilevered against the distant wastelands, when he heard the endless thunder and the cries of a hundred thousand mechs falling into the depths, with their city falling around them.

There were just mechanometers to go in this never-ending crossing. The solid promise of a landing was almost within reach when he saw the braces holding the pipe fail, and felt the conduit tipping downwards, determined to dump its last passengers onto the ruins of their home.

The mechling had fallen silent, shocked into immobility. Prowl whispered an apology to the little one, and then another into the night.

"I tried, Jazz," he told his distant friend, as the world dropped out from beneath his impellers. "I tried."


	2. Chapter 2

**Part Two**

_**Prompts: Silence / Chances are slim**_

_"Autobot Command and Control, Iacon, calling Autobot Tactical Officer Prowl."_ Jazz's voice was the only sound in the command centre. His strained call fell into a silence, just as a hundred others had in the course of these terrible joors. _"Iacon Command to Prowl. Please respond."_

To Jazz's right and left, mechs went about their business in a kind of numb shock. The few reports coming in from the field were delivered in hushed tones, or over private comms rather than the public channels. Jazz avoided the optics of those around him, and they avoided his, as he switched to his own private frequencies.

_"Prowl, this is Jazz. Come in – please." _The silence weighed down on him, crushing his spark, and Jazz counted his own sparkbeats as he waited. One hundred. Two. _"C'mon, Prowler! Give me a sign here, buddy."_

Nothing.

Jazz's optics dimmed, his visor adjusting automatically to conceal the emotion. He hadn't expected an answer, not really. No one who'd seen the bombardment on the live feed could hide from the reality of it. The Decepticon assault had been thorough and brutal. They had come and gone like the hoard of Unicron himself, their work complete long before the Autobots were in range to confront them.

Jazz had seen terrible things in the vorns since the Civil War kicked off. He'd caused a few of them to happen, and that still troubled him during long joors of recharge. He'd never seen anything that compared to a civilian population massacred without mercy, or a great city falling, burning, into the Pit.

He prayed he never would.

His optics rose, unwilling, to the main screen. Prime was on the ground somewhere, their leader shaken and horrified by what Megatron would do to make a point. Ratchet was out there too. And Ironhide. Jazz was only holding down Iacon Command because Optimus Prime had made it a direct order. He honestly wasn't sure whether it was better to be here, watching, helpless… or out there, standing above the ruins of Praxus and equally impotent.

A dark void occupied the space that had once been the second most powerful city-state on Cybertron. Smoke billowed from it, jagged spars and broken conduits glimpsed through the ever-moving clouds. The ruddy glow of flames lit the base of the smoke column, driving it.

Somewhere in the depths, kilometres beneath the surface, Praxus was still burning. Three joors after the city platform fell, the rescue teams were yet to get close to the inferno. The Autobot shuttles had reached their thermal limits and turned back, heavy with the knowledge that nothing closer to the heart of the city had survived.

Jazz's vents faltered and choked, his sensitive audials picking up the most recent, murmured report.

_Nothing_ had survived. Nothing at all. The shuttles were reporting grey frames on the lower platforms, scaffolds and and cross-walks, scattered like crystal dust as the city platform tilted and fell. Not one mech, femme or youngling had escaped Praxus alive.

No.

Jazz shook his helm, scowling down at the smaller monitor in front of him.

No. Prowl was smart, armoured, battle trained and one of the fastest mechs Jazz knew. He had warning, no matter how late. He wouldn't have gone down like that. He couldn't have done.

_"Prowler?" _He broke his own rule, not waiting through the five-breem interval he'd decided on before repeating himself. _"Prowl, please…"_

Silence, only silence, met his call.

_"Ratchet to base."_ The com system whirred, the signature coming from the shuttle he'd assigned to their CMO. The medic sounded sick to his spark, exhaustion dripping from his words.

_"Go."_

_"Jazz? I'm bringing this shuttle back to Iacon. We need to refuel."_ Ratchet vented hard. _"I'm not doing any good here anyway."_

_"Acknowledged. You're due a recharge break. I'll get another team ready to take over when the shuttle's prepped."_

_"Right…"_ The hesitation in Ratchet's voice was uncharacteristic. The medic paused and Jazz could hear the whine of the shuttle's engines behind his voice. _"Jazz, I don't know how long we can keep our mechs looking. Anyone surviving… slag it. The chances are… slim."_

Ratchet didn't mention Prowl by name. Jazz didn't either. His spark rebelled against the words. His processor couldn't deny their truth.

_"Yeah,"_ he murmured, voice soft. _"I know. Iacon out."_

The chief medical officer had been being kind. Ratchet's formal report hit the base network a few klicks after the comms channel closed. Technically all Jazz had to do was log it and file it. He read the report instead, the terse phrases telling him nothing new, but driving home the reality of their fall from grace.

- Survivors (located + projected): nil

Jazz closed the file, and this time not even his adaptive visor could hide the way his optics cycled down to nothing.

_"Red Alert to Jazz."_

Jazz didn't bother to respond to the private com. He forced his optics back online, glancing up at the nearest surveillance camera with a blank expression.

_"Ratchet isn't the only one overdue a break, Jazz."_

_"I'm not going anywhere. Not yet."_

Red Alert hesitated. The Security Officer's tone was careful when he went on, but his argument unrelenting.

_"I really must insist. Impairment to your efficiency during this emergency is a security risk for this base and the entire Autobot Army." _

It could have been Prowl on the other end of the line, reminding Jazz of his limits. It _should_ have been Prowl.

_"Do you want me to contact Ratchet for his opinion?"_

If Red did that, Jazz would be out of the control centre for half an orn. None of them were thinking straight, but Red Alert seldom interfered with his fellow officers' destructive habits, unless intervention was truly called for. Ratch would listen to the best observer on the base.

_"I'll call down for an energon ration, okay?"_ It was an opening gambit. Jazz knew better than to think he'd get away with it.

"_You need a break from that monitor." _Red Alert hesitated. _"Go to the Rec Room. Fetch yourself a ration. I'll accept nothing less." _The camera's gears whirred. The lens refocused as Jazz stood, slowly and with reluctance._ "I'll coordinate from here. And Jazz… if we hear anything, I will call you."_

It was small comfort. Today, Jazz would take even that.

* * *

"Is it true?"

Gears stood in Jazz's path. The minibot formed a solid barrier, impossible to avoid.

Jazz had made it to the energon dispenser and taken a slip from his cube before the mech spoke. His frame hummed with craving for the fresh energy, even as it turned to ashes in his mouth.

Around them, the hushed conversation faded to nothing. For the first time since entering the Rec Room, Jazz looked around. Half the tables were full, and half the mechs sitting at them were scratched and filthy, streaked with ash or crystal dust. Every face betrayed the same disbelief. There wasn't a single optic not fixed on their officer and the sturdy minibot questioning him.

"Gears?"

Realistically, there was only one question the mech could have been asking. Jazz could still hope that he was wrong and that this was something he could dismiss before moving on.

Gears took a step away from Jazz, almost as if backing away from his own question. The gruff minibot frowned, his hands going to his hips as he shifted his weight. "Prowl. Was he there?"

There was no sound in the Rec Room now, not even the scuff of pedes against the dusty floor.

"We heard…" Sideswipe's voice trailed off as Jazz's visor fixed on him. The red front-liner cycled his vents. His servos rubbed the back of his helm and then down his back, trailing a smear of grease behind them. "We heard you pranked Prowl over and over until Optimus ordered him to take some leave." The young warrior stopped again, attempting a smile that twisted into a grimace. "But that's not true, right? Prowl's too smart to fall for that. So it's got to be a cover story… right? Prime didn't really send him home?"

Jazz's vents seized. His spark faltered. The guilt he'd been denying to himself since Praxus fell spilled past his blocks. It burst like a tidal wave through his processor.

The mechs around him were waiting, expecting the usual reassuring grin and the quip that would diffuse their tension.

Jazz stepped around Gears and walked slowly to the door, his expression as blank and empty as he felt.

He said nothing.

His silence was answer enough.


	3. Chapter 3

**Part Three**

_**Prompts: Never say never / Saviour**_

_"Jazz, what are you doing?"_

It was a good question. Optimus Prime wasn't the first to ask it. Jazz had ignored the calls from Iacon Command, Red Alert and then Ironhide. He should probably have expected Optimus to be next, but, after all, it wasn't like the shuttle trip was unauthorized. Jazz had put through the codes himself, and only two mechs had the power to countermand him. One of those was on the communicator now. The other… well, that was rather the point.

For a few klicks, as Jazz adjusted his grip on the shuttle's controls, he considered ignoring his Prime too. That was easier said than done. Optimus's deep voice was full of strength and compassion. Jazz had answered to it for vorns. He couldn't change that now.

_"I had to see for myself, Prime. You get that, right?"_

Optimus vented a sigh. His voice was understanding, and deeply weary. He wouldn't show those emotions with many of the mechs under his command. Jazz had been his lieutenant for long enough to be a friend as well as subordinate. Jazz and Prowl both.

_"I ordered all the shuttles back to base."_

Jazz had an answer for that, at least. It wasn't a good one, but Prime could hardly argue with the facts.

_"It was already at base. You didn't say anything about taking one back out."_

An eddy hit the shuttle, and Jazz took a few moments to even out the flight before focusing back on the radio. The flames below made this a dangerous airspace. The near loss of one of their rescue teams had been the deciding factor in calling off the search in the first place.

Optimus Prime was waiting, letting the silence stretch out until his officer felt compelled to fill it.

Jazz knew what was happening. Prowl had worked this trick on him more often than he could count. It had always worked then too.

_"Slag it, Optimus! You've had me in Iacon all orn. I needed to be here. I needed to see this."_ That might be a valid argument if he could bring himself to look. His visor stayed fixed on his controls, fighting the billowing smoke and the columns of turbulent air they concealed. Fallen Praxus lay somewhere in the bottom of the pit, kilometres beneath him. From here, even the ruins were hidden. Only the broken struts and gouges, mute testimony that the city platform had stuck the sides of the pit, were visible: those and the scattered evidence of devastation all around. _"I needed to look for myself."_

_"I've looked and seen, Jazz."_ Prime's voice was heavy. _"There was no comfort to be found."_

_"Who said I'm looking for comfort?"_

Jazz wished he could take back the words as soon as they escaped his vocalisor. They rang with guilt and self-reproach, and the belief that he did not deserve comfort of any kind, even if it were offered.

Optimus Prime's vents hiccupped and for first time Jazz could remember, he heard a low keen in his friend's voice. The mech controlled himself, but it took long enough for Jazz to recognise the struggle.

_"Red Alert told me what happened in the Rec Room."_

_"Red should learn to mind his own business." _Jazz's answer was curt, but lacked serious rancour. Optimus vented a sigh.

_"Your actions dictated the timing of Prowl's leave of absence, not its necessity. Another few orns, and I believe he would have been in Ratchet's care."_

_"Another few orns, Optimus, and Prowl wouldn't have been in Praxus."_

Again, Optimus had to yield, Jazz's point unarguable. The Prime fell silent, although whether because he'd run out of things to say or because he was once again waiting for Jazz to take the lead, the Ops mech couldn't be sure. If the latter, he was out of luck. Jazz wouldn't be caught again.

He adjusted his visor, then straightened in the pilot's seat and resolutely lifted his optics to the viewport. He couldn't stop his own keen spilling into his vocalisor and out into the quiet of the cabin. He'd been in smelting factories that looked less like the forsaken Pit.

"_There's a Praxian saying… was a saying..." _

Slag it. Maybe he really was as predictable as Prowl always said. At least he knew Optimus was still listening. The big mech hummed an encouraging note as Jazz went on.

_"'Never say never'. It made me laugh when Prowl told me. I'd been saying that since I was a youngling, and I didn't think you could get a phrase more Polyhexian. But I was making it a challenge – throwing it as an arrogant dare in Unicron's face. To Prowl it was just a statement of truth: no matter how small the probability, it's never zero, not until Primus wakes and we all return to the Matrix and there's never a never again."_

_"Jazz…"_ Prime's voice was confused and uneasy, not sure where his lieutenant was going with this. _"We need to regroup and consolidate. I need you here. I want you to bring the shuttle back to base."_

_"I will."_ As Prime lost his certainty, Jazz seemed to find his own. His spark ached. His future seemed emptier and murkier than he could ever remember, but he was sure what he had to do._"When I'm ready." _

There was a whir of vents from Optimus Prime as the mech marshalled his arguments, but Jazz wasn't done yet.

_"Regroup? Yeah. We'll go on, and we'll make the Decepticons know it. It won't be just us either. We're gonna have mechs knocking at our door any breem, wanting to help. I know that." _A snort of humourless laughter escaped him._ "It's not like staying neutral is an option any more; Megatron made that pretty slagging clear." _Looking out over the chasm, Jazz shook his helm, determined. _"But this comes first. I need to find him, or do everything I can to say I tried. And don't you _dare_ tell me I 'never' will. The mech deserves a decent burial, Prime. He earned that much from us. We owe it to him."_

He signed off before Prime could make his request an order, and powered down the radio receiver so he could honestly say he hadn't heard any call.

Cycling his vents, trying to calm himself, Jazz adjusted the shuttle's trim. Taking a firm grip of the controls, he cancelled the programme that had been helping him hold station and immediately felt the little craft buck and fight him. His visored optics on his heads-up display, he slid the shuttle sideways and forward a little, matching its satellite positioning readout to the location Teletraan had derived from Prowl's last communication.

Where once a city platform had supported towers and streets, bridges and gardens, now the shuttle hung in a turbulent void.

Jazz felt the shudders through his seat, rising until they settled behind his chest-plates. He shook off the feeling. He was here for a reason. He'd told Prowl to run, and the tactical officer had to have known the importance of that command. Prowl wouldn't have just stood still. The question was, where had he gone, and how could Jazz find him?

He switched the hover-mode back in, keeping a tight hold of the stick with one servo as the shuttle bucked and fought despite the stabilisation. With his other, he reached out for the navigation computer, dialling up a view of the city as it was, and overlaying it with a coordinate grid as he tried to get his bearings.

"The Crystal Gardens?" Jazz asked aloud. He thought back, summoning the data file of that last conversation, filtering his friend's voice and enhancing the background. Most of it was noise, and it took him almost a breem to work through it to identify the anomalies. The faint hint of a child's laughter dimmed his optics. The slightest of crystalline chimes brought grim satisfaction.

Looking down again at the nav display, Jazz nodded. He had his bearings now. Prowl wouldn't have needed to take them. He'd talked about the Gardens in terms so familiar that Jazz half felt he'd seen them himself.

A pang of regret flooded his spark. He never had. Now he never would.

It took an effort to shake off the thought. He focussed on the facts, bringing his Ops-trained strategic algorithms to the fore. Prowl was in the Gardens. So what would the tactician have done next?

The main gate of the Crystal Gardens led back into the heart of the city. A second, smaller, exited onto the main Iacon road, just short of the bridge. That was a possibility.

Jazz zoomed in on the archival imaging, frowning as the expanded view of the Gardens came up. The outcrops were a little blurred, the imaging satellite high enough that even Cybertron's thin atmosphere presented problems. Even so, it was obvious that the route to that gate was far from simple. Prowl had been on the other side of the cultivated area, separated from the gate by several different outcrops and clusters of crystal growth, some rivalling a low tower in size. He'd have had to weave, clamber and climb to get out, either that or follow the labyrinthine path at little more than a crawl.

It felt wrong. Prowl might have assigned the scenario a probability and reasoned his way out of adopting it, before filing it for later review; Jazz dismissed it on instinct alone.

The shuttle bucked and it was almost a relief to take the time to wrestle it back under control. His frustration was building. This careful analysis was more Prowl's province than his own. It wasn't that Jazz _couldn't_ do it. Just that he seldom had time – or patience – to go over the options in such detail.

It might almost be ironic, if it wasn't so tragic: In the midst of the Decepticon assault, Prowl had been forced to impulsive, unplanned action. And now Jazz was dissecting it with painful care, growing steadily more downcast as he rejected each of his friend's possible escape routes.

He turned back to the monitor with reluctance. Prowl wouldn't have gone for the side-gate. So what was the alternative? Sitting still and waiting for the end? Never in a million vorns. Not the mech Jazz knew.

He panned out on the imaging, scrolling from side to side more in desperation than any real expectation. He could easily have missed it, but a single bright pixel in the image caught his optics – a highlight from something where nothing should be.

Most of the cities on Cybertron were built on platforms, resting on the un-navigable spider-web of struts and conduits below. Half the reason Praxus and Iacon thrived in the first place was because they were so hard to assault. Reaching the city platform from the surrounding wastes meant taking a shuttle, or a slow crossing on one of the bridges – unless you had a Seeker's wings.

So why, well off the side of the platform, halfway between the Iacon Bridge and the smaller route to Polyhex, was a dull gleam of metal reflecting the light of Praxian towers?

He zoomed in again, squinting and tilting his helm to adjust for the satellite perspective. A conduit? It spanned the gap between a relatively stable scaffold on the wasteland side and the city platform. Vanishing below the city platform, it was just another of the unremarkable and overlooked features that kept a city the size of Praxus running.

Prowl had spent half his adult life as a Praxian enforcer, and the other half as a battle tactician. He probably had the blueprints for half of Praxus in his processor. He could have known.

He had to have known.

The mech hadn't made it safe to the other side. If he had, Jazz wouldn't be here. But that's where he must have fallen. That's where Jazz had to look, and this far from the heart of Praxus and the still-burning inferno, that's where he had a chance of finding his friend.

There was even a chance Prowl's frame would be recognisable. The tactician's armour would have buffered him against an impact that would shatter the civilians around him. It wouldn't have been enough – not to survive a fall several metro-formers in height – but maybe it would be enough to let Jazz bring Prowl home.

"Never say never."

Jazz murmured the words aloud, cutting the hover and edging towards the side of the shaft. He'd have to follow the wall down, if he was going to keep his bearings. It would be a tricky balancing act. The flame-driven thermals were wild, unpredictable. They could dash him against an unseen crossbar or scaffold before he knew what had happened. The rescue teams that had descended the Pit in their fruitless search hadn't dared risk it, noting the empty frames littering the lower layers, kilometres below, but not attempting to recover them. Turbulence, and the threat of unstable debris, would place the rescuers in more danger than even Prime could justify.

Jazz didn't doubt his own justification.

The shuttle was level with the pitted, irregular surface of the surrounding wasteland. Jazz turned his craft so the cabin faced the pit wall, the powerful spotlights in the shuttle's nose picking out the broken brackets where the conduit had once landed. Energon had spilled from it, the blackened surfaces all around telling of flash-burning before the supply cut-off. It was a charred, lifeless place, but it was the reference point he needed.

Jazz took a deep vent and started the decent, the spotlights passing over alien shapes as he descended half a Supreme's height… a full span…

His servos froze on the controls. The vision passed through the pool of light from the shuttle and out of it before he had time to react.

Vents choking, Jazz scrambled for the shuttle's thrusters and checked the descent. He was almost afraid to react, to believe what he'd seen.

Slowly, so slowly, he eased power back into the thrusters and the shuttle rose. There'd been a warped and twisted surface, jutting out from the shaft wall – part of a larger platform torn in half by the force of the falling city. It had caught his spotlight beams for no more than a few nanoclicks, but there'd been… something… on it.

The klicks stretched out, his systems heating as his vents remained still and strained. Had he imagined it? Surely he hadn't overshot by this much…

There!

The ruined platform came into view. Its edge was ragged and hanging out over nothing. If any of the surrounding walkways connected to it, Jazz couldn't see them. Perhaps there had once been a settlement down here, before megavorns of development had buried it deep. Jazz didn't know and didn't care. What mattered was that he was barely more than a tower's height below the surface. And Prowl had armour and shock buffers as strong as Wheeljack could make them. Was it possible…? Or was he chasing a shadow of his own imagining?

His visor focussed, switching to infrared and back again, cycling through the entire electromagnetic spectrum and sorting the data, his search urgent and desperate.

There!

He'd seen it in passing and now he found it again. A crumpled shape, coated in a layer of dust and crystal shards. It took several klicks for Jazz even to be sure it was a mech, let alone one who looked halfway intact. He edged the shuttle closer, fighting the eddies, and winced as he washed the still form with the jet of exhaust from his thrusters.

The crystal dust billowed, glittering in the disturbed air. Beneath, Jazz glimpsed black and white plating, scuffed almost beyond recognition and huddled protectively around something small and grey.

It could have been anyone. Jazz knew, with a Primus-born certainty, that it wasn't.

Cool air flooded Jazz's system as his vents reset. He scrabbled blindly for the radio receiver. His servo found it without his optics ever leaving the viewport. The comms unit seemed to take forever to power up, long enough that Jazz was already close to setting down before he heard the hiss of the still-open channel to Iacon.

_"Ratchet!"_ He yelled the name, not bothering with call signs or courtesies.

_"He's already on his way to you. Him and Optimus Prime,"_ Red Alert reported crisply, his answer instantaneous, as if he'd been poised and waiting for the call. _"What's wrong?"_

Jazz laughed, too exhausted and exhilarated and terrified to wonder if the reaction was even halfway appropriate. The shuttle landed with a bump, and Jazz was out of the pilot's seat within microklicks.

_"Nothing,"_ he called back over his shoulder as he headed for the hatch. _"Everything and nothing, and… please, Primus… after today and this whole slagging nightmare… something might just work out right."_


	4. Chapter 4

**Part Four**

_**Prompt: Living and Loving**_

"Living isn't going to be easy."

Jazz said that to him, the same orn he awoke from stasis to find a medberth below him and half the Autobot officer corps surrounding it. He'd stared at the other mech, not sure how to respond, or quite what his friend meant.

"Sometimes you're going to want to scream and cry and ask why you didn't end up in the Pit with the rest. Some orns, maybe, the dark and tough ones you won't admit to even to yourself, you're going to wish you had… and hate yourself for wishing it."

Jazz had tilted his helm, his expression sombre. He'd waited until the others left to speak up, but there was a restrained urgency to his voice. Prowl, still in shock, had wondered what made the Ops mech think he knew how this felt. He answered his own question in the same thought. Even in the handful of vorns since this conflict started, Special Ops losses had been heavy. They couldn't compare to the city now in ruins, its population entombed in its molten core, but Jazz wasn't immune to the reality of death. Or the survivor's guilt that followed in its tracks.

"You're going to want to do all that. And you won't – because you're you, and it would mean losing control, and that's not who you are. So, I'm here, Prowl. Whenever you need me. I want you to know I'll help, even if it means screaming or fighting, or kicking the slag out of the Decepticons. Even if it just means being here and doing none of that. I'll be here, whatever it takes."

Despite all the awkward, mumbled words of sympathy Prowl heard that orn, and in the decaorn since, it was Jazz's quiet, matter of fact assertion that stayed with him and rang with the most sparkfelt sincerity.

The memory returned to him now, in the darkness of his quarters. It couldn't balance the guilt and pain but, as always, the words brought a fleeting warmth to his chilled spark.

A high-pitched murmur spilled through the dedicated com-link beside Prowl's berth. They'd been growing louder and more frequent over the last breem, and Prowl knew he wasn't the only one whose recharge was broken and restless.

He rose, his repaired and fully recalibrated door-wings flaring behind him for balance as his processor protested its lack of recharge. He didn't let that stop him as he slipped through the newly-installed connecting door, entering the quarters next to his own on silent pedes.

The grey mechling looked even smaller on the full-sized berth. Cushions surrounded him, stopping him from rolling into the improvised barriers all around, but they lay in twisted disarray. As Prowl entered, the recharging infant gave a low cry, his pedes kicking and his arms thrown out as if reaching for something that wasn't there. Prowl scooped him up just as the blue optics lit and his murmurs burst into full-voiced keens.

"I'm here, Bluestreak." Prowl wasn't accustomed to talking to infants. He'd done what he could to avoid them during his time as an enforcer, and there'd been no need to do so in the vorns since. The last decaorn had been a steep learning curve.

He rocked slightly. The tips of his servos stroked door-wings smaller than his palm. Bluestreak buried his faceplates against the larger mech's chest armour, the points of his infant chevron too soft to even leave a mark.

Prowl wouldn't have minded if they had. He owed the infant a debt he could never repay. The guilt he still felt, the memory of little Bluestreak's genitors falling behind, would probably never fade. He couldn't save them. And now the child who'd inspired them to courage and action was his responsibility. It was his turn to do anything he could for Bluestreak – his responsibility and his privilege.

"We're safe." He held the mechling to him and marvelled in the comfort it brought them both. "You're safe now, Bluestreak. I won't let you go."

Bluestreak babbled. Snatches of both Iacon Standard and his native Praxian dialect mixed in with incomprehensible half-words, and choked keens. The infant was always more talkative when he woke from the nightmares than at other times. It was as if he was talking to distract himself, and perhaps to distract the taller Praxian who held and comforted him.

The memories would fade with time, their imagery losing clarity as its details were over-written with more immediate and familiar data. The trauma, this early in the development of Bluestreak's neural net, would leave its mark nonetheless.

Rocking the infant, Prowl vented a sigh. They'd never be quite the same again. Either one of them.

There was a whisper of noise from the main door to Bluestreak's quarters. Jazz slipped through, moving as quietly as Prowl had in the Iaconian night. The light of the Ops mech's visor joined Prowl's optics, casting a cool illumination over both large Praxian and small, and the very different Polyhexian frame facing them.

"Is Blue all right?" Jazz moved closer, one servo reaching out to stroke Bluestreak's faceplates. The infant shied away. He fell silent, his fear instinctive, and his grip on Prowl's armour tightening. Jazz's servo stopped, hovering but coming no closer. It was several klicks before the mechling relaxed. He looked up at the newcomer, his optics wary but not hostile. Jazz was still the only Autobot, other than Prowl, that had made even that much progress in winning the child over. Jazz dropped his servo with a rueful smile. "I heard him wake up. I thought you might be up too."

It was possible. It was also possible that Jazz had a highly illegal hack in Teletraan's monitors, alerting him if either mech or mechling roused. Prowl had no evidence either way… and no intention of searching for any.

"Jazz." Prowl swayed gently. He kept his voice soft and warm, as much to reassure Bluestreak as for his friend's sake. "You didn't have to come."

Jazz's expression flickered, the serious demeanour of that day in medbay showing for a brief second. Then he grinned. He dropped the barriers on one side of Bluestreak's berth, patting the cushions back into shape and dropping down to sit on the edge. He patted the berth beside him in silent invitation, before polarising his visor in a deliberate wink.

"No problem, mech."

The Ops saboteur leaned back, apparently unconcerned that he was sprawling across Bluestreak's berth, or that it was the middle of the recharge joors. He pulled something from his subspace, ignoring both Prowl and the infant as he turned it back and forth, studying it.

Bluestreak let out an uncertain warbling sound, taken aback. Prowl glanced down at the mechling and shrugged. A nocturnal visit from Jazz was becoming part of their new 'normal'. It broke up the long nights, giving them both something to think about other than the memories that haunted them. Usually Jazz would fetch them energon to compensate for the disrupted recharge, chivy them back to their berths, suggest a light vid to watch, or even sing softly to distract them from their brooding. As surprised as Prowl had been by his friend's unselfish company, both he and the mechling had become accustomed to it. For Jazz to ignore them now completely broke that pattern.

Prowl sat next to his fellow officer for want of anything better to do, shifting Bluestreak into his lap as both peered curiously at the thing in Jazz's servos.

Jazz's clever hands gave them only glimpses of whatever fascinated him. The mech's visor seemed fixed on it, but Prowl knew Jazz well enough to tell that the Ops mech was watching Bluestreak, the 'accidental' revelations carefully timed. Intrigued despite himself, Prowl peered closer, his door-wings rising as he craned his helm for a better view.

Bluestreak recognised the device before Prowl did. The mechling reached for it, his small servos making grabby motions as his vocalisor rose in semi-coherent entreaty.

"Please? Me please?"

Prowl wasn't sure he'd heard Bluestreak utter a comprehensible word with to anyone beyond Prowl himself since he woke. The well-hidden triumph in Jazz's posture said that he knew it too.

The Ops mech looked down at his servos, and then at the infant, with an exaggerated surprise.

"You want this? Well…" He appeared to consider it, his helm tilted to one side, before the corner of his mouth quirked up and he held it out. "Here you go, Blue."

Bluestreak tumbled out from the circle of Prowl's arms onto his padded berth, and that was new too. Usually the mechling would cling until recharge loosened his grip.

It was a toy. Just a toy.

Until a decaorn ago, they'd been common. Every child in Praxus must have had one, at the front of their toy shelf, or beside their berth where they could reach it if they woke. As an infant, Prowl had one himself, its capacities constantly upgraded as his processor developed.

Bluestreak was already sprawled on his chest-plates, his little brow furrowed as he worked on the simple puzzle cube, trying to trigger the tune, video, funny picture or other treat that would come with success.

Reaching out with a single servo, Prowl touched the device in disbelief. Its surface rippled, sensing the touch, and Bluestreak frowned. His little hand slapped Prowl's away.

Prowl backed off, recognising his breach of etiquette and unwilling to chide the infant for his own infraction. "I'm sorry," he murmured, a small smile forming on his faceplates as Bluesteak chirped forgiveness and refocused without another thought.

Just a common toy. But it was a uniquely Praxian child's toy, cast aside at maturity and rarely leaving the city platform. Prowl could count every mechling being raised outside his home city on his servos. There couldn't be more than a dozen of these left in all of Cybertron. How Jazz had found one he'd never know.

Prowl hummed, his vocalisor straining a little to hit the high pitch he required. His door-wings felt the resonant response from the data crystal at the device's core – a crystal that, by custom and practice, had come from the Gardens themselves.

"Good." Bluestreak laughed his satisfaction as he made quick work of the basic level Jazz had chosen for a starting point. "Look!" he held it up, a babble of half-formed words coming faster than Prowl could follow. "Good!"

The reward this time was a lullaby, sweet and soft, the music of chiming crystals underlying it. Bluestreak listened, enraptured, his immature door-wings quivering as they too picked up the faint resonance.

The mechling's optics were cycling sleepily when he started on the next level. Jazz noticed. The Ops mech settled a little lower on the modified berth, his frame blocking its open side. His thigh speakers extended, the Praxian melody repeating in the quiet room and then developing as he improvised on the theme.

Prowl leaned back himself, careful to ensure Bluestreak couldn't squirm past him and fall from the berth in his recharge. He ran a finger over the infant's helm, his own spark easier than it had been since he awoke. It wouldn't hurt to rest here until the mechling was safely in recharge. He might as well be comfortable, and – somewhat to his surprise – he found his really was. His optics cycled through a lazy reboot, his door-wings folding down against his back, as the lullaby went on.

* * *

He woke abruptly, his processor rebelling against the trauma-corrupted memories it still struggled to file. His frame was tense, but it was warm too and the berth beneath him was far softer than he was accustomed to.

He booted his optics with caution, surprised to find himself still on Bluestreak's berth with the mechling, resting peacefully, curled against his new guardian's chest-plate. Jazz was sprawled beside them both, his servo thrown across Bluestreak and resting on Prowl's upper arm.

It was unfamiliar. Strange. And strangely agreeable.

Prowl vented softly, his frame's tension easing. He didn't fight the warmth and for once the quiet didn't trouble him. He let Jazz's lullaby play again through his memory files, easing the grip of older, darker memories… if only for a moment.

His arms eased around the mech and the mechling between them, sharing the tranquil moment. A surge of affection and gratitude flooded him, the energy spilling out past his armour. Bluestreak squirmed, his tiny servos tightening on Prowl's chest armour. Jazz stirred too, rolling a little closer without ever waking from recharge. Prowl waited for his friend to settle and then settled himself, more relaxed than he'd thought possible. Just a decaorn before, he'd never have dreamed of sharing his berth, or letting anyone slide with such ease into his shaken spark. But then a decaorn before, he'd been a different mech and Cybertron had been a different world.

Living in the world after Praxus fell wasn't going to be easy. But he wasn't alone in the attempt. He knew that now. And, maybe, just maybe, loving would be enough to see them through.

* * *

**The End**


End file.
